Internet of things – past, present, and future

Sarah Gold is a designer working within the new civic, emerging digital infrastructures and data architectures to imagine, design and create future web infrastructure and digital tools for a more democratic society. She’s well known in the UK tech-scene for her pioneering work on the Alternet, a proposal for a civic network. Her talk is ‘Smart House, Dumb Home – The problem with the internet of things, and what we could do about it. ‘ @SarahTGoldSarah’s slides

Jonny Voon is the Lead Technologist for Internet Technology at Innovate UK, the UK Government’s Innovation Agency. He has a particular focus on the Internet of Things, Cyber Security and Cloud. The Internet of Things has been hailed as one of the “Eight Great Technologies” and Jonny is Innovate UK’s representative on the Digital Policy Alliance’s (DPA) Internet of Things work stream, looking at ways to drive greater adoption of IoT through industry and Government. He also currently leads activity in the development of innovation in cyber security and cloud technology across the digital economy. He will discuss the UK Government’s approach to IoT adoption, Innovate UK’s activity on Io, how to get funding from Innovate U, and what’s happening (and has happened) in London in IoT. @JonnyVoonJonny’s slides

Tim Stone is a board level executive with over 20 years’ experience in both the corporate and startup world. He has a focus on building effective business strategies and helping companies grow their businesses. At Breed Reply, as Venture Partner Director, it is the role of him and his team to help startups become successful fast, through working closely with them and providing bespoke advice and support.Venture Partner Director at Breed Reply, a startup incubator for IoT. Breed Reply funds IoT businesses in seed and early stages, but it’s not all about the funding! Hands on support and go-to-market are at the core of its incubation model. Tim is going to explain how Breed Reply invests in IoT and help businesses grow fast, also giving some examples of the startups they are already working with. @timjstone101

The favourite suggestion from the Open Data meetup was having local tech projects/companies spend 5 min each talking about what they’re up to. So let’s do it.

Who knew South London was such a hotbed of interesting tech!? We’ve got a great line up.

Paul and Chris from Folk Labs have worked with Herne Hill Forum to redesign and relaunch their hyperlocal community site, built on Open Local – an open source Drupal distribution. They’re also working with the Council to build Connecting Communities – a system to connect Lambeth’s community websites with the Council and the wider civic technology sector. @folklabs

Siôn works on nature at Friends of the Earth. It’s a critical moment for nature and, building on the hugely successful Bee Cause campaign, they’re exploring how data can be used to engage people using a map tool they’ve open-sourced and other means. @wwwfoecouk

FoodTrade – winner of the Nesta ODI Food Open Data Challenge. FoodTrade www.foodtrade.com is a site that aims to map the food system to enable shorter, more transparent and sustainable supply chains. Food buyers and sellers register on the site so they can discover market opportunities. @foodtradehq

Habitat – Habitat is a proof of concept, self hosted, personal datastore, a kind of external brain like google now. It stores your location and lets you write rules over that data using ‘cucumber tests’ – things like “When I am in a “park” and the weather looks like “rain” Then send an sms ‘RAIN!!!'” @richardjpope

Astec Solutions is an early years consultancy and the creator of Prism, the most comprehensive nursery management solution around. We use technology to make the life of the nursery professional much easier, collecting and turning data into insight that both improves childcare quality and boosts business. Visit us at www.astecsolutionsltd.com to find out more or say hello @AstecEY

After a great start last Autumn, the South London Tech Meetup is back! Our next event – Open Data: Experience and Opportunities is 7pm Monday 16 February at the Impact Hub Brixton. We have three fantastic speakers with different perspectives on where the open data debate is at, and some free local beers to lubricate the conversation.

The Open Data Institute

Briony Phillips from the Open Data Institute manages the Challenge Series, a ‘series of seven challenge prizes to generate innovative and sustainable open data solutions to social problems.’ ’in a partnership project with Nesta. She will talk about the ODI and challenge series, use of open data in business models and the challenges of working with open data.

mySociety

Louise Crow and Mark Longair are developers at mySociety, a not for profit organisation who ‘invent and popularise digital tools that enable citizens to exert power over institutions and decision makers.’ They will give an overview of mySociety’s relationship with open data, walk through a case study – FixMyTransport, and then discuss open data now.

The project was about creating an environment that would mash together open data, the community and experts (council snd armchair) to look and review datasets, help put together dashboards, understand what is going on behind the information and make the information work. It is all open source and anyone is welcome to fork it on github.Community Data

Monday, 8 September 2014 from 7-9pm at the Impact Hub Brixton

Tech startups seem to be springing up everywhere. Every day there are stories of entrepreneurs creating innovative ventures and attracting eye watering investment. But is it that easy? As an entrepreneur, how can you attract investment? What are the must-dos and pitfalls to avoid? What do investors look at when trying to find the next big thing? Is it about the product or the people?

We hope to shed some light on these topics by hearing from an entrepreneur who is currently running his own start-up. We will hear about his journey, mistakes made and valuable advice.

We will also hear from investors who try to guide on how to successfully pitch for investment.

Speakers

The Investor

EC1 Capital is a web and mobile technology investment fund created in Feb 2012. They back ‘tenacious, aligned and focused founders addressing a significant pain point or disruption potential within a large addressable market.’

Jay Patani joined EC1 Capital in December 2013. Jay has gained experience in an array of industries, including publishing, the media and consulting. He is also an occasional contributor to tech publications, commenting on everything digital.

Gerald Vanderpuye is co-founder and CEO at BuyerDeck, and has first-hand current experience off pitching for VC funding. He has worked in business development for 10 years and recently launched out on his own with BuyerDeck. BuyerDeck is a SaaS platform that helps B2B enterprise sales representatives identify their most engaged buyers so they can focus on the right buyer at the right time.

Are you a budding entrepreneur with an idea or a pitch to present? Contact us and you may have an opportunity to present your pitch to the investor and entrepreneur. They will provide constructive criticism of your pitch and who knows!